“What you say about somebody else, anybody else, reveals you. What I think of you as being. It’s dictated by my own necessity, my own psychology, my own fears and desires. I’m not describing you when I talk about you, I’m describing me.”

Some remarkable dialogue from “Take This Hammer” which illustrates Baldwin’s remarkable faith in man.

Young African-American kid: There ain’t gonna be no negro president of this country.

Baldwin: There will never be a negro president of this country. Why do you say that?

Kid: We can’t get jobs, how we gonna be a president?

Baldwin: Exactly. But, I want you to think about this. There will be a negro president of this country. But it will not be the country that we are sitting in now.